


The Polaroids

by EllieMarchetti



Series: Marauders Era [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hangover, Implied/Referenced Sex, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMarchetti/pseuds/EllieMarchetti
Summary: Sirius and Marlene wake up naked with only a handful of photos to explain what happened during the night they can't remember
Relationships: Sirius Black & Marlene McKinnon
Series: Marauders Era [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575673
Kudos: 1





	1. The Blackout

There were many things Marlene would’ve liked to wake up to on a Saturday morning in the early days of September. Maybe her best friend’s lovely smiling face, her red hair spilling over the pillows, sunlight streaming through the blinds in gentle yellow stripes; maybe the smell of scrambled eggs, her mother waiting for her downstairs with a nice breakfast for the whole family to share. On this particular morning, Marlene doesn’t woke up to either of those things, instead she found herself in a too lit room that wasn’t her own to a regular noise that sounded like a hammer beaten on the wall, as well as a massive headache, her head throbbing like her brain was about to slip in two. It hits her that she was hangover once she finally found the willpower to open her eyes, rubbing her hands over them to try to get them stay that way. Her mouth was dry and it tasted like absolute hell. She remembered she drank, the previous night, but when she tried to remember just how much, she realized that she can’t remember. She turned to the other side of the bed, giving her back to the window, only to see a face too familiar next to her, just where there should’ve been no one at all. A pathetic verse escaped her lips, and Sirius’s eyelids began to shake, and his long eyelashes no longer hid his gray eyes. He too seemed bothered by the sunlight, and if only Marlene had been lucid enough and above all dressed, maybe she could’ve escaped before he woke up and gave her an embarrassing explanations about what happened after the dinner, but every muscle in her body hurt and surely she wouldn’t have the time to get out of the tangle of blankets before he opened his eyes. So she stood there, like an idiot, waiting for Sirius Black, in whose arms she had promised herself again and again not to fall, to wake up and ask her not too kindly to get out of his room because he wanted to continue to sleep.

“Marlene?” he asked, perplexed, his mouth kneaded, killing all the possible scenarios the girl had just imagined. Neither did he remember what had happened?

“Where we are?” he asked, looking around. Finally Marlene also focused on the walls that still smelt of painting and the scarcity of furniture. It was one of the guest rooms in Lily and James’s cottage; she had helped them to paint and furnish everything so that both of them could really feel at home, taking with them some of the colors and shapes of Gryffindor’s dorm, but hangover, she hadn’t paid much attention, not that the constant noise of something banging against the opposite wall, which had stopped for a few seconds and now had resumed with even more urgency, helped her concentrate. In a glimmer of lucidity, she exchanged an amused look with Sirius, who burst out laughing.

“The newlyweds…” he commented maliciously, sitting up. He had never been muscular, it was James the athletic one of the group, yet seeing his bare chest, the ribs’ shape that could be guessed beneath the pale skin, almost white in the late morning light, Marlene was struggling to swallow. It was no secret that, in the last years of school, they had a crush on each other, nor was it the continuous refusal of her, that she didn’t want to be treated like Sirius’ other conquests, or their constant flirting, and yet that reaction forced her to admit that in her heart there was something more than just infatuation. Or perhaps it was the remnants of the alcohol that spoke and didn’t make her think clearly.

“What time is it?” he asked, interrupting the flow of her thoughts. Surely that wasn’t the right time to ask herself certain questions.

“I have no idea, and I wouldn’t want to be indelicate, but do you remember what happened last night?” she asked, looking for the boy’s gaze. She didn’t want to hurt him, nor did she want to be hurt in turn, so she prayed that the disastrous face she was supposed to have let see only a tiny part of the desperation that she felt growing inside her.

“I remember the reception, at least in part. I remember when Euphemia and Fleamont left, but from then on I only have a few fragments.”

Yes, she also remembered that part, as well as the passionate kiss that she and Mary MacDonald had exchanged as long as Sirius and Remus did the same. From then on, however, she didn’t even have fragments, only the void until that morning.

“And those fragments… what are they about?” she tried to investigate, sliding her back on the pillow and tightening the sheet under her armpits, in the vain hope of covering her naked breast.

"I remember plants, maybe a wood, or maybe I flew in a hedge, which would explain why I’m covered in bruises.” he said, alluding to the marks on his elbow and shoulder that began to turn purple. “And I remember Remus and Dorcas too, I think they kissed at some point. Or it was you? I don’t know, all blondes look the same to me” he said, with a sly smile, and Marlene, ignoring the pain in her muscles, punched him in the ribs, snatching a grunt from him. From the way he looked at her, it was evident that in a sea of blonde girls he would know how to recognize her immediately. Besides, she was quite sure she hadn’t kissed Remus Lupin, or she would’ve been the worst friend in the world. If she did, even if she was drunk, Dorcas, who had a crush on the beautiful werewolf long before she knew of his condition, would kill her, and not with a killing curse, but with her bare hands.

“So you don’t know if…” Marlene started, but Sirius preceded her.

“If we had sex? Surely, with a body like mine, how could you have resisted?” he asked, grinning, alluding to his naked torso. It was too much. Marlene grabbed one of the cushions and began to beat him, although, she was sure the force that was imprinting in that act wasn’t enough to even slightly hurt him. For a while Sirius let her do it, then grabbed the pillow and pressed it to her chest. A faint blush colored her cheeks, to the idea that the boy, in the sunlight and in semi-sobriety, could’ve seen her half naked. Not that it mattered, if indeed what she feared had happened. She hugged the pillow, desperately looking for her clothes on the floor. There was no trace of them, but there was an indefinite amount of photographs that must’ve been thrown there when they returned. They had been shot with Lily’s Muggle camera, and most of them were extremely dark, as if they had really gone into a forest, but others seemed almost successful, so she took them and put them on the bed, earning a strange look from Sirius.

“I think these are the summary of our night.” she suggested, taking one of the shots in her hands. It portrayed her using a piece of golden cloth to wrap Sirius’s ankle. Moved by curiosity, and by the urgency of understanding if those images would have helped her or not to shed light on the events of the last twelve hours, she took a piece of the blanket and discovered the boy’s naked body. For a moment, her eyes slid over the pale, slender figure, but they focused almost immediately on the ankle; Remus’, or Peter’s, tie wasn’t there anymore, but there still was a long, thin red cut. So she threw back the blanket over Sirius, and continued to study the photos, trying to give them a chronological order. The first was the one where she and Sirius were leaning against the wall of the house, smoking. The second, on the other hand, was supposed to be the one where everyone had had their respective wand stick out blue sparks and used them like a fountain, allowing Lily and James to recreate, at least in part, the famous bath in the fountain they talked about at Hogwarts. Of course, those weren’t the famous Beauxbatons fountains, but they had to be content because they laughed happily, taking a smile from Marlene too. From there it was more difficult to guess which came first and which after, but she assumed that Sirius in his canine shape was among the last before returning.

“Wait, we went to the Great Lake?” Sirius asked, passing one of the pictures. Indeed, the photo portrayed Sirius and Remus in the water, while Marlene and Dorcas was drinking something on the shore, and judging from the lighting, it must have been taken just before dawn.

“Probably we just Apparate.”

“Do you think we managed to get Meadows drunk?” Sirius asked, after a few more moments of silence.

“I doubt, at least not if Remus stayed with us and sober all the time. Besides, only they could have taken my clothes.”

“And mine?” Sirius asked.

“I’m pretty sure your clothes are still wet at Hogwarts.”

“What an idiot, I could’ve dried them!”

“Drunk as you were, you’d probably set yourself on fire.”

Sirius laughed, but the smile died on his lips when he took the one that probably was the last shot. It was the two of them in bed, and he put it at the end of their improvised timeline. Both stood looking at it for a while, wondering what their embrace could’ve meant. Marlene was the first to recover and continue with her own research. There were three more pictures of the reception, one with all the Marauders, one of James drinking with Alice and one of Dorcas who was making huge soap bubbles with her wand and tossing them on Lily, probably after an embarrassing joke of the bride at her and Remus expenses, and three more photos at Hogwarts. One was only of Marlene, probably in the Forbidden Forest, shortly before, or shortly after she bandaged Sirius, the second was of Marlene and Dorcas embracing inside the castle, and the third was the most embarrassing and probably with more meanings behind. It portrayed Sirius and Marlene intent on kissing, her arms wrapped around his neck, and Sirius’s hands cupping her face. They were both smiling, not just a drunk smile, but a smile filled with pure bliss. But it wasn’t the most embarrassing part of the thing since, and it deeply intrigued her, Albus Dumbledore stood amused behind them, still wearing a night gown.

"I think only Remus, Dorcas and Peter can answer our questions.” Sirius concluded, ripping the image from her hands and making her wince. Suddenly, something had broken and the atmosphere of amused complicity that had been created in the room had changed, turning into something much darker.

“Everything’s ok?” asked Marlene, worried, touching Sirius’ shoulder. He smiled, a sad, weak smile that surely wouldn’t have reassured her and that wasn’t enough to make her believe the words that followed.

“Sure, I just need to take a shower and steal something from James to put on, then we’ll search for Remus.”

Then, in a moment, she found herself alone in the room, looking again at the photos, concentrating on how she and Sirius seemed to be in sync as they talked in the garden, how they all looked happy in the first picture at the reception, or how the Marauders didn’t seem aged a day since she met them. They were different, more men and less children, yet something in their expressions made them always the same, always the friends with whom she wanted to face the problems of adult life as she had faced those of school. When she got to the last picture, a lonely tear ran down her left cheek, falling on the photo of her walking backwards through the Forbidden Forest, smiling at the lens. Although unintentionally, she had become one of Sirius’ one night mistakes.


	2. The Sixth and Seventh Polaroids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marlene remembers the story behind two of the mysterious photos from the previous night

Marlene slipped as quietly as possible into the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and pondering if it were appropriate to give at least a turn of the key. She had no idea who else had stopped to sleep, and Sirius, when he returned from his raid in the couple’s room, hadn’t talked much, just delivering her a blue dress with short sleeves embroidered with an exaggerated amount of tiny white flowers and her shoes, which he claimed to have found at the entrance. They had to took them off when they came back so as not to wake up all the house’s occupants.

She looked at herself in the mirror, hoping she wouldn’t look too much like a corpse, but she was definitely disappointed and even vaguely horrified: her eyes were bloodshot, flushed with deep dark circles, her skin pale and an undefined color between yellowish and gray, and the hair a real disaster, a tangled mess of knots and tufts of straw’s consistency. She had a bruise on one cheek and those that had to be three small love bites to mark her neck’s lenght, starting from under the ear and coming almost to the breast. It was too obvious what had happened and she felt a wave of shame tighten her stomach. It wasn’t the first time she had slept with someone after a crazy night, but with Sirius it was different, it was as if she had wasted her chance to prove that she was more than a fool who liked to party and indulge in the first boy that gave her attention.

She felt dead inside, with a tremendous smell of alcohol and sweat lingering on her, so she opened the shower, hoping to get rid of that sticky feeling at least. She became aware, by soaping her body, of having more bruises. She counted them, as if it could make sense of what happened. One on the knee, one on the shoulder, one on the hip. Suddenly, she remembered how she got them.

They had Apparated in the Forbidden Forest, the first place near Hogwarts where they were certain that the protections wouldn’t have knocked them straight from where they came. For a long time they had discussed whether it was wise to try to Apparate on the shores of the Black Lake, but Remus fervently claimed that the part closest to the school was covered by the spell, so they all agreed that the forest’s edge was the better and wiser idea, even if there was nothing wise in the whole project.

Nobody had landed on their feet, and they had long remained to laugh at Sirius, who just couldn’t get up, doubled up in turn with laughter. They were drunk, it was obvious, but it wasn’t particularly important: they were having fun like crazy, as they hadn’t done since the end of the journey they had taken after the end of their school career. It was a pity that the bride and groom hadn’t gone with them, but they had disappeared at one-thirty and no one had been able to find them, so they had assumed they had gone home for their first night as husband and wife. No one was spared in jokes and speculations of which, Marlene was sure, it was good not to speak about with those directly involved, if they wanted to avoid being hit to death with books and knick-knacks.

When they had finally managed to march, Remus, who was the least drunk, but not quite sober, had begun to tell funny anecdotes about when they went to school, jokes that the Marauders had made and detenctions that they had been obliged to endure for their actions. When Marlene had heard of herself, she turned to him and started walking backwards, laughing lightly of the umpteenth beautiful memory they shared.

“I swear, I’ve never seen anyone give a better use to a book.” Sirius commented, then ran towards her and lifted her off the floor in a hug. Marlene had continued to laugh, letting him twirl her for two or three times.

“If you don’t stop, I swear I could throw up!” she had screamed, but Sirius hadn’t listened to her, perhaps knowing that she had endured worse in worse conditions, and had continued, until he had lost his balance and they both fell to the ground ruinously, laughing, the pain muffled by the alcohol.

When Sirius tried to get back on his feet, he found a large piece of dry bramble caught in his trousers and elegant shoes that James had forced him to wear.

“You won’t come to my wedding in jeans!” he had threatened, chasing him with the black suit still wrapped in plastic. “You would break my parents’ heart!”

Lily and Marlene had laughed all afternoon, while Sirius argued with the shoulders of his jacket, which he claimed were too tight and didn’t allow him to move, and with the waist of his pants.

“I look like my grandfather” he said, finally, shot down, looking in the mirror.

“Or a penguin,” Lily added, sparking general curiosity about what penguins were. She and Remus had been very busy trying to explain to them what the animal looked like, but they hadn’t done a good job, because when Peter had tried to draw it, a pear-shaped creature had come out, with a long hooked beak and huge feet that didn’t seem sweet as the two friends claimed were.

Sirius removed the branch with all the grace granted to a drunken man, and not only cut the thin fabric of his trousers, but also tore the skin below, which began to bleed. When Remus set out to heal him with a spell, he vehemently refused, arguing that it didn’t hurt at all and that he had endured worse, but when the blood began to wet even the stocking, making the shoe slippery, he accepted that Marlene bandaged him with Peter’s tie, who had done nothing but loosen the knot all evening.

Even at Hogwarts he had never stand it and the professors kept on reproaching him for his decidedly not appropriate clothing, or at least they had done so until his friends hadn’t appeared in class wearing girl uniforms, unleashing the hilarity of all the school.

When Marlene had finished with Sirius’s ankle, the boy printed a loud kiss on her lips in gratitude, and then he held out his hand, to help her get up, then dragged her to the castle, followed closely by the three friends, all anxious to complete their mission.


End file.
